


The Princess and the Goldsmith's Son

by Sassaphrass



Series: Tales from Exile [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Class Issues, Dis don't need your chivalry, Dragons cause problems, Dwarf Courting, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf Women, Exile, F/M, Gen, Societal Upheaval, The Road to Dunland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sassaphrass/pseuds/Sassaphrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the long hard trek to Dunland, Dis makes the acquaintance of someone unexpected. The yellow haired tanner from the mountain slopes would never have crossed paths with the Princess if the dragon had not come. </p>
<p>Disaster has a way of breaking down barriers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess and the Goldsmith's Son

**Author's Note:**

> I plotted out this fic after watching the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and only finished the first chapter after seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I do like playing around with Dwarven Culture and Customs, especially when it comes to their ladies, since canonically it's practically a blank slate. Here is my take on Fili's dad. Enjoy!

It started with a spindle. It was decided, given that it would be a long walk and summer wouldn't last forever, to have those dwarrowdames that had clever hands to start spinning wool. Which was, as far as Dis was concerned, damned unnatural and really a very stupid idea. Dwarves, be they Ladies or no, were not meant to spin yarn. Especially not on drop spindles, while walking, though if she craned her neck she could see that Groin's wife was happily chatting and walking and spinning all at once without a single lump in the thread. Whereas, Dis had something like a bird's nest. Only less orderly.

“ You should stop that.” A voice calls out. She turns. It's grinning dwarf with very long bright yellow hair and a carefully braided moustache leading three goats on a string.

“Surely, you don't mean that I shirk my share of the duties.”

“No, no. I just think that the yarn you're spinning won't be any use to man or beast.”

Dis glares at him. He grins.

“Aw, your ladyship I meant no offense. I only thought, perhaps we could trade toils?” He gestured with his string. “Lead my goats and I'll spin your wool.”

Frowning, Dis nodded and took the string as he grabbed her wool.

Dis watched in wonder as without a second's hesitation he righted to string and the spindle and began spinning perfect yarn.

“How do you know how to do that?”

“You're holding my goats. Work it out.”

“Why do you have goats? I mean...”

“Eh, don't worry. Truth is, all the treasures of Erebor, and I saved some cranky goats and some tools you could find anywhere.” He shrugged.

“I'm sorry, but what' your name?”

“Floi, son of Muniver Goldentouch, at your service my lady” He said with a smile and a bow.

Dis laughed “You're the one from the song! Aren't you? _The Golden Son_ ”

Floi, grinned sheepishly, “My friend wrote it...he thought it was a good tale.”

Dis laughed and sang. “ _And gold so loved fair Muniver, her son was born with yellow hair_!”

Floi, scowled “My mother was a great goldsmith yes, and I have no doubt, that I was born because she could not pass up the chance for a son with golden hair, but the bit about the Gold of Erebor itself loving her is, I think, poetic license.”

Dis grinned. “And is it true that the Gold became jealous of your hair and wouldn't sing for you as it did for your mother, that the stone itself cracked in envy at the light that was caught in your braids?”

Floi grimaced “That was my dear friend being cruel. I've little skill at any proper arts you see, and...” he shrugged.

“I thought Muniver's was a family of deep delvers? Surely if you hadn't the skill for your mother's trade, one of your uncle's would have apprenticed you.”

“I dislike delving, and am terrible at graving, carving, smithying and almost everything else.” He shrugged. “So I wandered from the heart of the mountain where I was born, first I washed up among the bards and musicians but I couldn't earn my bread till I found myself among the tanners and the woodcarvers on the mountain slopes. And here I am. A tanner by trade speakin' with the Princess of Erebor. Who'd have thought!?”

 

Dis tried to keep her face from changing when he said he was a tanner. The tanners were the highest. With their workshops mostly on the slopes of the mountain, and their herds (herds! what state for a grown dwarf!?) that wandered up and down the ridges and the little rivers, they were those unsuited to mining, or mathematics or the merchant life, or smithing or planning or delving or graving. It was where the not quite dwarvish enough dwarves ended up, the ones with clumsy hands or slow minds. It was where unusual sorts with nowhere else to go ended up. Dwarfs odd enough to dislike the deep tunnels, dwarfs who missed the sun when the were too long underground. Odd dwarves. Wrong Dwarves.

Floi caught it her change of expression and flushed bright red. “I know, such a disappointment, Son of Muniver, Greatest of Goldsmiths, a tanner! Such a disappointment! I suppose the Lady Dis, of the Fine Works, who can catch the light in crystal, make music boxes with dancing figures, and can forge throwing knives that always hit their target shouldn't be seen with the likes of me...just hold onto Penny, and Pearly and Mean ol' Dervish. I'll get you your yarn at the end of the day.”

Bright red, he bustled off into the crowd, still spinning the yarn.

 

Dis was beginning to make camp among the other ladies when a loud cough made her whip around. Floi, the son of Muniver was standing there, the firelight catching in his yellow hair, and a large ball of perfectly spun yarn in his hand. All the other ladies of the camp went silent.

Floi went even redder, and pushed the yarn towards her. “Here, I spun it all. Where are my goats?”

Dis went and fetched them from their picket. Floi smiled bowed and touched his hand to his forehead. “Very much obliged your ladyship.” He mumbled and then headed off into the camp, disappearing among the bustle of the other dwarves.

“Durin's Beard Dis!” someone whispered. “Was that a tanner?”

Dis blushed. “He offered to spin the yarn for me if I would lead his goats...It was kind of him. I'd made a mess of the yarn anyway.”

Groin's wife shook her head. “It's not right. Him talking to you, we are not petty-dwarves! We are the race of Durin and for an inferior craftsman to talk to you! You, who are among the highest students of your craft, and of the line of the greatest of our people.” She made a clucking noise. “Well, it doesn't bear thinking what ought to be done for that sort of presumption.”

Dis shook her head. “We're not in Erebor anymore. It doesn't matter does it? Whether he's a stupid tanner or a master of architecture...we all have nothing.”

She sat down heavily and put her head in her hands.

Groin's wife clucked again. “Oh Dis. No need for that! It's not so very bleak. Here,” she slid over next to her. “Let me braid your hair in the proper fashion for a lady travelling. You've your hair done up as if you were planning to spend the day in your brother's forge! That won't do. And you know they've had a whip round among the other survivors to try and cobble together decent outfits for us dwarrowdames, so that we won't have to go about so indecently clad in dresses and tunics instead of proper steel.”

Dis sniffed. “It hardly matters....we'll be lucky to live through winter, so many of us out here in the wild...if us ladies aren't dressed decently for a long journey...who's to be offended?”

Groin's wife tugged her hair sharply. “Of course it matters, the survival of our race depends on the survival of the dwarrowdames. No dwarf would hold back what he could give, if he could give it.”

Dis sighed and leaned back, if she closed her eyes and closed her ears she could almost pretend it was her mother braiding her hair before a trip down to Dale in the company of her brothers and cousins.

 

Floi appeared again some days later, Dis caught sight of his yellow hair ahead of her in the crowd of refugees and pushed forward (though of course every dwarf made way for her, there wasn't a dwarf alive that would slight a dwarrowdame in such a way).

Dis felt better now, Gloin's wife had been right. The dwarfs had managed to cobble together halfway decent outfits for the lot of them and she no longer felt so exposed walking about in just her leggings and jerkin from the forge. She had scrubbed the soot of the dragon from her skin and was properly dressed now with her hair neatly braided under her chin and a shirt of mail fit for a lady. She had no helmet sadly, but she could no more wear the helmet of a male dwarf on her head than a duck, and all the proper female travelling clothes had been carefully stowed away and was now lost to that cursed dragon.

“Floi!” she called.

He paused and stared at her dumbstruck. “My-my lady!” He seemed to remember himself and bowed hastily very low, though one of his goats trying to bite his braids and somewhat ruined the effect.

She stood in front of him. “I wished to apologize, for how the other ladies acted when you brought me the yarn. It was rude and unkind.”

Floi turned red again. “It's nothing milady. I'm a tanner, and I had no right to speak to you at all. If you had needed help I'm sure you'd have asked a proper craftsman, not some moutainside maggot. But, I didn't quite realize it was YOU you until after I'd already spoken and you didn't seem angry-and-I-thought-it wouldn't be right not to assist so great a lady as yourself-and please don't set your dwarrowfolk on me? I am truly-”

Dis held up a hand. “I'm apologizing to _you_. Not you to me. Now. I wish you all the best and hope that with your goats..-”

“Penny, Pearl and Dervish”

“-with your goats Penny, Pearl and Dervish, you are able to rebuild your life.”

Floi made a funny have bow and grinned. “It's funny, as a tanner on the hills I had less than you lot but now I've got more. Everything I needed I could grab in a minute. But you could hardly have carried your forge with it's many special tools...”

Dis sighed. “Don't remind me. It weighs heavy on my mind as it is.”

Floi frowned. “Well, can't have a mastercrafter unhappy. C'mon, let's have a song. I hear the line of Durin are all great singers.”

Dis shook her head.

“Ah, c'mon. If you won't I will! I nearly completed an apprenticeship among the bards, they said I had one of the finest voices they'd ever hear!”

He cleared his throat and began.

“ _There once was a dwarf!_

_An industrious dwarf!_

_Who was mining deep in the ground! (the ground!)_

_And what do you think he'd found?_

_Yes what do you think he'd found!_

 

Floi grinned at her “C'mon milady you know the words!” Dis shook her head, and ducked away.

Floi nudged her with an elbow. “C'mon my lady!”

Dis relented.

“ _He found coal!”_ she sang

Floi grinned so wide it looked it to split his face and joined in.

_“And he said, that was not the goal! (Goal!)_

_No, that was not the goal1”_

Dis stopped singing and shook her head as she saw heads turning in the crowd. “No, stop it Floi, people are looking!”

But Floi just laughed and kept singing. “ _here once was a dwarf!..”_

“No! Floi! Stop!” Dis cried.

Then a hand in the crowd reached out and grabbed Floi and shook him hard. “What manner of dwarf are you that you would ignore the wishes of a dwarrowdame so!?”

Dis winced. It had to be Dwalin. How the giant of a dwarf even managed to sneak up on her was a mystery.

Floi was shrinking away and bright red again.

“No! Of course n-not I just thought a song might, might ease her burdens..”

“Ease her- Ease her burdens? As though her home has not been burned to ash and her people slaughtered? Her mother missing, probably dead! Her burdens are her's to bear and if she wants help with the load she'll bloody ask you high-minded fool!” Dwalin all but tosses Floi to the ground and is raising his hand for a blow when Dis quietly asks:

“Do you offer me insult Dwalin son of Fundin?”

Dwalin froze and immediately lowered his fist. “NO! Of course not my dear cousin, I merely-”

“Than you believe I have not the skills to defend my own burdens?” Dis continued.

“Well, it's just, it was clear that you wanted him to stop and-”

“I _asked him_ to stop. If I had wanted him to stop, or needed him to stop I could have _made_ him stop. Or do you question my skill?”

“No-”

“My ability then?”

“Of course n-”

“Then you mean to imply that I am not a proper heir to the warriors of Durin and am unable to defend myself?!” Dis continued.

“I would n-”

“You think me some foolish woman?! Some weakling human who needs the help of others to ensure my safety?!”

“Now Dis-”

But, Dis wass furious. Bad enough that Floi, in good humour and jest, ignored her words, but for Dwalin to act as though she were weak? A scribe or an architect and not a great designer and forger of throwing knives!? It was an insult that couldn't be allowed to stand.

With a sharp crack she smashed her fist against her cousin's head, and with a quick sweep of her legs she knocked his feet out from under him.

It was likely that Dwalin could have saved himself from the fall, but he acted rashly and knows he's in the wrong. He falls with a grunt, and Dis is reaching for a knife that isn't at her belt (it's lost like so much else, she must have dropped it when she was running...) when Thorin fights his way out of the crowd.

 

“Dis what is going on?!” He thundered, “Dwalin said he saw something happening with you and then he was gone and I find him here and-”

“He offered me insult brother.” Dis hissed.

“What?! How?” Thorin has always favoured Dwalin, nevermind that Dis has never been one quick to anger.

“This tanner here” Dis strode over and grabbed Floi from where he was trying to disappear into the crowd. “ was trying to entertain me with a song. I didn't find it amusing and told him to stop singing. He, in jest, continued. Dwalin interfered, demanding the tanner explain and apologize for not heeding my word.”

Thorin winced. Good. He understood./

He prodded Dwalin with a toes where he is sitting on the ground. “And what madness made you think that was a good idea? Eh?”

Dwalin shrugged. “Seeing that tanner making light of the wishes of a Princess of the line of Durin. It angered me. Such a thing would never have come to pass in Erebor. Look what the dragon has reduced us to! Tanners, goatherds, rabbit-keepers mixing with a craftsmaster like your sister? It'd be bad enough if it was bards or deep-delvers, but a tanner?! Ignoring the request of a lady? And not just any lady but Dis Cleverfingers, of the line of Durin?! If I had allowed that the shame would have followed me as assuredly as the taste of ash shall never leave my mouth until the day that dragon dies!!” He finished his speech in a roar.

Dis lifted her chin and glared at her older brother, daring him to side with his beloved Master of the Guards.

Thorin looked uncertain. Dwalin spoke of the rage and shame all the dwarves felt at the ruin of their home, but more than that he spoke of the ruin of the work of the great guilds and families.

“Umm, pardon me your..umm...Lordship prince-ness?”

Everyone in the crowd turned to look at Floi, who, still red and crunging, had shuffled back into the empty space left by the crowd.

“The pair of us were in the wrong. Both myself and the warrior. We both offered insult to Dis, and...she ought to decide what to do? Right? Otherwise you might offer her insult and then it would be a never ending circle of those-” Dis shot the foolish tanner a look and he stopped that foolish line of reason. “-Anyway, p'rhaps she should decide what's to be done?” unlike Dwalin, Floi finished his speech with his voice barely a whisper.

 

That a tanner should be gentle and kind and clever was very stanger to Dis then. She banished the pair of them from her sight for 4 days and bade that they remember her place in the future. Dwalin grumbled but Floi looked terrifyingly relieved and promised her brother he would never speak to the Lady Dis again.

 

_She seeks him out again though, the Goldsmith's son with his bright yellow hair, and his beautiful voice. He's afraid of her at first, Dis Cleverfingers, maker of throwing knives, designer of clockwork, princess of the line of Durin. But he is kind and gentle in a way that few dwarves ever are and even fewer are now that they wander the wastes._

 

_They settle in Dunland by the time the seasons turn to fall. It's terrible, huddling in rough caves, which they could shape into palaces beyond the imaginings of mortal or elvish kings if only they had the tools._

 

_When winter comes things get desperate and strangers steal his goats and eat 2 of them. Dis sees to it that he gets a portion of the meat at least, but he finds it a cold comfort she knows._

 

_He still sings though. And not just the sad solemn chants that are so in favour with the few surviving bards, but the happy tunes of gold found, treasures made and children born and raised as well. It's a relief from the agony of grief that suffocates the caves._

_Logically Dis knows that Floi has as much to grieve as any of them, more maybe since his people were deep-delvers, and all but of a few of those miners were trapped in the roots of the mountain when the dragon came. His mother's forge was near to the heart of the mountain and none doubt that Muniver Goldentouch perished in a searing flash of fire, but it's hard to remember all that in face of Floi's smile and his foolish little songs_

 

_When spring comes and the dwarves begin mining the pig-iron that is plentiful in the hills, Dis goes to her brother and asks that he see to it some form of compensation is given to Floi for his lost goats. Thorin raises a brow and tells her that if she wishes to see him compensated she can sell on of the Mithril clasps from her hair._

 

_She does and Floi smiles that face cracking grin at her when she hands him two goat kids on a string._

_“I'll have to name both of them Princess I suppose!” He says._

**Author's Note:**

> If I continue this it will probably be as a series of relatively unconnected little stories that slot in to the timeline of the Dwarves in Exile.
> 
> The names I used for the OC dwarves in the fic all come from either Tolkien or the Poetic Eddas where he got most of his names. I chose Floi for Dis' love interest because based on the family tree in the appendices the rhyming names are between brothers not fathers and sons. Also, the reason that Dis doesn't have a husband listed will be explained. 
> 
> For anyone who cares to know tanners in preindustrial societies were often considered unclean or looked down upon because it was such dirty and disgusting work. In my mind dwarven society is based much more around skill and crafts with Guild like social structures surrounding status, and certain skills and abilities being thought of as better than others. 
> 
> I have all these ideas about Dwarven Culture and how things work out for Floi and Dis (not to mention baby Fili and Kili when they enter on scene). Comments of any kind would be much appreciated.


End file.
